North Korea Strategy—Advice for the White House from Christopher Hill ’74, H ’14

December 1, 2017 by Tom Porter

Christopher Hill ’74

President Donald Trump needs a coherent North Korea strategy, writes Christopher Hill ’74, H ’14 in an op-ed for The Japan Times. “So far, he has failed even to articulate, much less implement, a strategy for dealing with North Korea,” said Hill, the former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia.

Trump’s recent decision to put North Korea back on the US State Department’s terrorism watch list, while justified, was “largely symbolic,” said Hill, and not the “critical step” the White House said it was. With the country’s Yongbong nuclear now operational once more, tackling the North Korea problem “will require a seriousness of purpose and a level of discipline that Trump has not yet exhibited.”

Hill is a former career diplomat and a four-time ambassador. His last post was as ambassador to Iraq, which he left in 2010. He was also ambassador to South Korea in 2004-5. Hill is now dean of the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies.